


For Every Color of Desire

by Gerbilfriend



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aromantic Jester, Asexual Jester, Character Study, Gen, Jester Lavorre Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24738871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/pseuds/Gerbilfriend
Summary: Jester hopes she can be enough, even if her love is not love-love
Relationships: Beauregard & Caduceus Clay & Fjord & Jester Lavorre & Nott & Caleb Widogast & Yasha, Jester Lavorre & The Mighty Nein
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	For Every Color of Desire

Here’s the thing about Jester.

She knows the script. She grew up watching it.

Sometimes she would sit at her hole for hours, watching as her mamma as she lead her most recent guest through it.

It worked, of course it did. Her mamma was super pretty and a super good singer and really really awesome.

She was the Ruby of the Sea!

She didn’t understand what it was about, not really. But Mamma tells her it's important to learn the cues so she tries.

Here’s the thing about Jester. 

She doesn’t really get why people get so awkward around sex, it's just sex. It's like farting or cooking really.

She doesn’t realize how people feel about dicks until she doodles one on a table and five different people jump away from it.

The Traveller came by again that evening to laugh about it, once her Mamma was done.

The next day she draws three, the entire time, she can feel the Traveller laughing with her.

That’s the other thing about Jester, she doesn’t want to be alone.

The Travller makes her not alone.

Her Mamma makes her not alone.

Otherwise.

Otherwise she sits in her room, and it should be light, her room is super pretty and she can see the sea outside and she has her books and her paints and-

She still feels cold.

The Traveller laughs when she draws dicks, she can feel his presence curl around her. When she draws dicks she is not alone.

So she draws dicks. She does other pranks too, when she can, she rearranges furniture and switches the salt and pepper and once, once she even tricked that stupid lord who kept bothering her Mamma out onto the balcony.

That one had been really funny, well until she had to leave and was alone.

It was still funny but she was too cold to laugh after that.

She keeps drawing dicks through, keeps trying because the Traveller loves her chaos and if she stops-

If she stops-

Here is another thing Jester knows.

Her Mamma is never alone. Not when she doesn’t want to be.

And it makes sense, right? Because her Mamma is pretty and charming and makes everyone love her, love-love her so they keep coming back.

So when Jester is alone, when she is walking because her horse left she comes up with a Plan.

She just has to become like her mom.

Well sort of. Jester knows herself, she likes cute things like hamsters and unicorns and maybe hamster unicorns, definitely hamster unicorns.

She isn’t graceful like her Mamma.

But people love-love her Mamma and if she can make them love-love her the way they love-love her Mamma then she won’t ever have to be alone because she’ll have people who won’t leave her.

It's a good plan.

She tells the Traveller about it because he is still around when he can be and he agrees with her.

She even draws it!

Well, she tries at least, it's hard to draw the people you don’t know yet but Jester gives it her best shot.

And then she finds the people. 

It starts with Fjord and Beau. She tries with Fjord first, because while she knows her Mamma has people who love-love her who are all kinds of genders she's seen that men are easier in general, less risky.

Jester really needs this to work. She doesn’t want to be alone.

Besides, it's kinda fun to see him flush whenever she whispers “ _ Oskar”  _ in just the right tone of voice, not quite the tone of voice that her Mamma uses when her guests are doing the right thing but close.

It works.

Well, sort of. 

Jester doesn’t think she makes anyone in the group love-love her in that first month but it's okay because they stick together anyways.

She keeps up the flirting because it's fun and because sometimes people take awhile, Mamma had told her that and she would know.

Her Mamma was really good at this after all.

She keeps it up because she needs it to work, because she is an adventurer in a story and if she is the girl who gets a guy then she doesn’t have to be alone.

That's how it works.

People fall in love-love and then they don’t leave and she doesn’t have to be alone.

Jester didn’t plan for loving the Nien. 

Here’s another thing about Jester. She knows the difference between love-love and love.

Her Mamma loves her. She loves her Mamma. She loves the Traveller.

That belongs in one category.

Thats one kind of love, the kind of love that stays. 

Love-love, which Jester has never been able to find a better word but seems to follow after liking, and always said with that certain twist to it, is different.

Her Mamma might have had it for her Dad and he left but her Mamma wasn’t alone because she had lots of other people who were in love-love with her.

That's why it's good she is traveling in a group, even if one of them leaves her if they are all in love-love with her then she won’t have to be alone.

Jester hates being alone.

She didn’t count on loving the Nien.

Jester didn’t realize that she loved the Nien until Molly was gone but she does and she loves them. She knows that now.

She loves having a roommate at night, Beau is the best roommate, it was just like she had always imagined when she was little and lonely and would pile up her pillows to pretend that she did have a friend. It was better than that actually, because she actually did now.

She loves Nott. She loves how clever Nott is and how she is scared but goes ahead and finds traps and kills manticor babies, even though that is kind of sad, in order to protect her friends anyways.

She loves Fjord too. She doesn’t know if trying to make him love-love her worked, but she loves how he tries to plan and lets her flirt with him.

She loves Caleb for his awkward, gruff kindnesses and how he tries so hard.

She loves Molly for being brilliant and alive and wanting this group to work as well, he gets it, what being empty and alone feels like and as much as it hurts that her friend feels that way she loves him for understanding.

She loves Yasha for her quiet. Jester had never been good at quiet, things were only quiet when she was alone and Jester hated being alone so she made sure to make noise whenever she could. Yasha’s quiet isn’t a lonely quiet and Jester loves her for that.

Then they come for her.

They came for her. They came for when she was taken and none of them were even in love-love with her.

Jester thinks they might love her too.

As long she she can keep them alive, and Jester thinks that she can as long as they aren’t stupid or seperated or-

Jester hopes she can keep them alive, but that's something on her that she needs to be stronger to do.

She doesn’t stop her flirting through, because in stories even if friends love each other it's love-love that always seems to get the most time and Jester really does not want to be alone.

She had people now. She has people and she always gets to share a room or a dome and there is no time for her to feel lonely because she never has to be.

She has everyone now. She has the Might Nien, is part of the Mighty Nien and it is better then anything she has ever read about because it is real and she gets to be part of it.

Things are hard and scary sometimes but at least she is not alone.

Then Nott is Veth is who almost Veth the halfling and suddenly Jester is scared again, because Veth has someone who she is in love-love with and Jester doesn’t want to lose someone she loves.

Jester watches Nott as she gets so close to becoming Veth and it hurts.

Jester hadn’t thought about it before. How love-love was supposed to trump love even through she loves her friend so much.

Jester thinks she would probably fuck any other them, if that was what it took to make them stay. It wouldn’t even be hard. None of them have asked her yet but she would do it. She knows plenty of ways to make sure that any of them would have a good time.

It would be worth it if it meant they stayed with her. Jester is pretty sure sex is just sort of sticky and boring in real life, one of the reasons she loves her books so much, they make sex sound interesting and help her to understand why everyone is so interested in it.

She isn’t sure about love-love through, Jester loves her friends. She loves them so much it would almost hurt if it wasn’t the exact opposite feeling of sitting in her room alone and wishing.

If it was just sex that would make them stay Jester would do that.

Jester loves her friends, she just doesn’t have love-love for any of them and that's okay, her Mama doesn’t have love-love for her clients and they stay with her, Jester even loves her family.

But. But.

But love-love. Veth has a husband and a son and Jester knows that Veth love-loves her husband.

She still hesitates through.

And suddenly, Jester realizes she has hope. Because Veth can’t decide. And Jester knows she shouldn’t be happy that Veth can’t decide who she wants to be with but she is, because that means that even if Jester isn’t in love-love with any of the group, even if her first Plan to get them all in love-love with her fails she won’t have to be alone.

Love can be enough to hold them together. Love is what keeps the Traveler coming back to her, love is what makes her and her Mama so sad when they are separated.

Love was what made the Nien come for her, what made them come for Yasha.

Love can be enough.

Her dad is just another piece of proof that she is right.

That her first plan was silly but it's okay because she loves her group and they love her and that's enough.

Because he love-loves her Mama and she love-loves him and that's not enough.

They are both still alone even though they love-love each other.

So maybe Jester’s first plan to make everyone love-love her she wouldn’t be alone was stupid but now she has an even bigger family that loves her so she’s happy.

Here is one more thing about Jester, when she was little, before she realized that the open road was so very interesting and she wanted to see what was on it, before she realized that if she pranked people she didn’t have to be alone, before she left the Lord on his balcony, before all that Jester thought about being her mama.

She thought about taking over the Lavish Chateau and her mama taught her bits. She taught Jester how to read people, to tell what they were thinking. As Jester got older her mama taught her more and more.

Her mama taught her to tell who was interested, who was not. Who wanted and who didn’t. 

Jester’s learned more since she started traveling.

And that's what makes her afraid.

Because Veth love-loves Yeza and one day she might just leave.

It's gotten scarier through.

Because now Jester thinks Beau might love-love or best just like-like her.

She wonders if Caleb might.

Or if Fjord does.

And Jester doesn’t want that anymore.

Jester loves Beau. Jester loves Beau so much it fills her up and makes her warm and gets her up even when she is cut open and bleeding. She loves Caleb too, loves his illusions and the wry smile he gets when he finds the dicks she leaves him. She loves Fjord for his defiance and his steadiness and the way he tries so hard to keep them on track. She loves Veth for her chaos, Jester has always wanted someone else to prank with. She loves Caduceus for his steady patience and listening ear. She loves Yasha for her stubborn kindness and her flowers and, and-

Jester loves the Nien.

Sometimes when Jester was little she would see Mama have fights with clients when they realized she didn’t love-love them back.

Once, Jester remembered, her mama had had a friend. But then that friend had fallen in love-love with her and that had been that.

The friend had never come back.

Jester loves the Nien. She loves them as much as she's ever loved anything in her life.

She loves them all.

But she doesn’t want to go on dates with them or marry them (she would, if they asked, if it meant they would never leave her to be alone. She would. But Jester is pretty sure that her love is different from love-love, none of the things ever quite match up)

She just wants them to stay with her.

But she doesn’t love-love them so what if they leave because they love-love other people and the love of the Nien isn’t enough.

What if Jester’s love isn’t enough.

What if Beau does love-love Jester but hates her because Jester doesn’t love-love Beau.

Jester doesn’t know.

Sometimes, it feels like she’s drowning but there is nothing she can do because to bring it up would be to make it bright and neon and unignorable and right now she can pretend that it's not a problem and it's fine.

But sometimes.

Sometimes the fear makes it hard to breath.

Because Jester does not want to be alone again. She hopes her love is enough. She really does.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Because I have a giant soft spot for aro/ace characters who don't follow the aro/ace stereotypes. If anyone is wondering Jester is sex neutral and was romance neutral but is becoming more romance negative as time goes on.
> 
> The title is from For Me by Dearlie
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJxKlyrR_s


End file.
